Elevator Pitch:

Amateur Hour is a cozy murder mystery about a newly married couple who get lost on a road trip and find themselves knocking on the enormous doors of a forbidding castle in the middle of nowhere to ask if they can stay the night. Though unexpected, they are surprised to find a slew of all-too familiar faces inside, and a mystery that will have them second-guessing just what sort of existential whodunit they have written themselves into.

Mystery—95,000 words

Copyright 2018

The Story So Far:

Status-in-a-Nutshell: Complete, available to read. Needs minor editing.

I wrote this one for my beautiful and amazing wife, to be a surprise Christmas gift in 2018. We love to read at least one mystery together over the holiday vacation, but it can be hard to find one with just the right mix of charm and camp and sultry English accents and snowy landscapes full of old, abandoned castles, so I wrote Amateur Hour to be the perfect read-aloud-together book. And it is… for us. For everyone else, there are 100+ inside jokes no one else will get. Which is fine, as long as you go in knowing it is going to be a little weird in that regard.

I only had a couple copies printed up; one is on our bookshelf at home, but the other is making its way around the country to any family or friends who are interested. If you want it next, let me know!

What’s Next?

Amateur Hour was never meant for mass market. In fact, I never really intended anyone else to read it, but the cat slipped out of the bag, so here we are. Even though I quite like the story and am pleased with how it turned out, there are certain issues (aside from all the inscrutable inside jokes) that would probably prevent it from ever being legally published (like a half-dozen major copyright infringements.) I do have a halfhearted notion to edit it one day with an eye toward publication (the market for cheap paperback mysteries is always strong,) but it is not a priority.

A sequel is not in the works… yet.